if we make it through december
by stolethekey
Summary: "Look at us. Two loners, doing okay on Christmas Eve." "Doing more than okay on Christmas Eve." "To us," she declares, raising her glass. "For making it through December." - or, a stevenat christmas


**if we make it through December (everything's gonna be all right)**

December has rapidly become Steve's least favorite month.

December is the start of winter. It means wind, snow that somehow finds a way to soak even the most bundled-up person's socks, and a bone-chilling cold that bites at the very foundation of humanity's collective soul.

At least, that's what Steve's Californian first-grade teacher used to say.

He didn't mind it so much as a kid, back when he could bundle up with his mom in front of the fireplace and they could bask in its warmth, finding comfort in blankets and hot chocolate and each other. It was fine, back then – but then Sarah Rogers died right before Thanksgiving, which meant Steve's first Christmas as a legal adult was spent alone, staring incessantly into the flames while he stubbornly refused to admit that he maybe should've taken Bucky up on his offer to spend the night at his house.

It was, somewhat literally, all downhill from there.

Bucky fell off a train in the Alps, surrounded by snow so bright it hurt to look at. Steve watched him fall, then promptly nose-dived a plane into the ocean and spent the better part of a century frozen in a block of ice.

Suffice it to say: he's had enough cold for a lifetime. And December brings nothing but cold and people celebrating a holiday he hasn't found joy in in seventy years.

So it's only natural, really, that his first December out of the ice is spent in relative restlessness. It's natural that, when Fury sends out a volunteer request for a stakeout that starts December 10th that features an "indefinite length of time – could go into Christmas", Steve jumps off of his couch and heads directly to Stark Tower.

He fully expects to be the only one there, but as he turns the corner and steps through the door he sees a certain redhead perched on Fury's desk, leafing through a stack of papers.

It's hard to say who looks more surprised as they take in each other's presence.

"I – um, hi," he stutters, trying not to appear intimidated by his two companions. "I just – I'm here for that stakeout assignment?"

"Oh," Natasha says, her eyebrows raised slightly. "Wow. Really? You know it's probably going into Christmas, right?"

"Yeah," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I mean, I knew that was a possibility. That actually – um, that actually kind of makes it more appealing to me."

She tilts her head slightly, a curious, searching look in her eyes. Steve shifts uncomfortably, well aware of her uncanny ability to read people.

"There's always an assignment near Christmas," Fury says from behind the desk, and Steve looks at him, grateful for the excuse to look somewhere else. "But Agent Romanoff is the only one who ever takes it on. The volunteer request is simply a formality – most people know they aren't expected to take it."

"Well, I guess I never got the memo."

Natasha studies him. "Most people have Christmas plans."

"I don't," he says shortly. Then, in an attempt to appear more amicable, he follows it up quickly with, "But now that I'm here, you can take this year off. Spend some time doing your own Christmas thing."

She shrugs. "I don't have a Christmas thing."

"Great," says Fury, with an air of general impatience. "Then you can do it together."

The assignment is fairly simple – a routine stakeout at a surprisingly nice campsite. Their target is a Ukrainian mobster whose drop-house is apparently a cabin at the edge of the campsite, and as the two of them trudge into a neighboring cabin and drop their bags on the floor, Steve casts a cursory glance out the window.

"That cabin looks completely empty," he mutters.

"I know," Natasha says, carrying a few grocery bags into the kitchen. "It is. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have to be here for as long as we probably will be."

"So we just – what, we just wait until someone shows up?"

She glances at him. "Never been on a stakeout before, huh?"

"Well, not like this," he says, almost defensively. "Not that I'm complaining, but you'd think they'd have a more precise time period for the drop."

"I thought you _wanted_ it to go long."

"I do, I'm just making a general comment on the inefficiency of it all."

Natasha rolls her eyes, and Steve feels inexplicably as if he has disappointed her.

"Why do you always do these assignments, anyway? Wouldn't it make more sense for people to rotate by year, or something?"

She shrugs. "Like I said, everyone else makes plans for the holidays. They have people to reunite with, friends to spend time with, family to see. I don't."

"You have friends. Clint's your friend."

She gives a short laugh. "Clint always has plans."

"With whom?"

Her eyes narrow slightly as she looks up at him, a familiar guarded expression on her face. "People who aren't me."

"Right," Steve says uncomfortably. "Sorry."

Natasha sighs as she places the last loaf of bread on the counter and shoves the empty grocery bags into a cabinet. "It's okay. He invites me every year, but it's not – I don't want to intrude on his time with them. We spend most of the year together, anyway. Plus, American Christmas really doesn't mean that much to me. So I don't mind taking on a little extra work while everyone else is celebrating."

"Right," Steve says again. "That makes sense."

"What about you? Why did the great Captain America decide to spend his December holed away in a cabin, waiting for a mobster to stop by?"

He hesitates, but as he meets her eyes he can tell that she's already figured him out. She knows why he's here – she's simply giving him a chance to tell her himself, to set the parameters for the rest of their conversations here.

He doesn't know her, not really, but for some reason he knows that she'll respect his boundaries. That if he decides to bluff and make up some excuse about spending his holidays doing good for the world, she'll shrug, say "fair enough," and won't bring it up again.

She knows exactly why he wanted to work– he sees that. He also sees that she's perfectly okay with however he wants to play it. It's a strangely comforting realization, if a little unexpected, and maybe that's why he makes the choice that he does.

"I don't like Decembers," he says, toying with the hem of his jacket. "My mom died in the fall, and that winter had some of the hardest months of my life. Plus, Bucky died in the snow, I was in a block of ice for a couple decades – "

"And Christmas isn't exactly joyful when you're alone," she supplies softly.

Maybe she's guessed even more than he thought.

"I wanted a distraction."

"A distraction," Natasha repeats, a small smile toying at her lips. "I think we can handle that." 

They do their job, of course – the drop-house is always being watched. But their cabin's location makes it fairly easy to ensure that their target is under constant surveillance, and there is plenty of free time to be had, given that their mobster friend chooses to never show his face.

The days are filled with board games and gentle music, thanks largely to Natasha. Steve notices fairly quickly that she has a striking intuition for his emotions – when he wants to be left alone, she's nowhere to be seen, but when he starts to get restless, _Settlers of Catan_ appears under his nose before his thoughts even have a chance to start spiraling.

She's good at small talk, he learns. Good at filling the silence with words that would be trivial were it not for their ability to keep an ever-approaching despair at bay.

He hasn't had this type of companionship in…well, decades, and he's surprised that it doesn't make him more uncomfortable. They barely know each other, after all, and it should be unsettling that she can read him as easily as she does.

For some odd reason, it's not.

She accommodates him as easily as anyone ever has, providing him with companionship when he needs it and leaving him alone when he doesn't, and the next few weeks pass in surprising comfort.

The days not happy, exactly, but they're not entirely full of pain, either. And that's an improvement.

"Hey," Natasha says one evening, sprawled across the floor in front of the fireplace. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"It's Christmas Eve."

Steve pauses, looking up from his copy of _Crime and Punishment_. "Huh."

She hesitates, then flips over onto her back to look at him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Do you really believe in God?"

His brow furrows slightly in confusion. "What?"

"It's just – Christmas is a religious holiday, you know, so I just got to thinking about it, and back when we first met, on that jet, you said that there was 'only one god."

He chews his lip slowly, letting the book drop into his lap. "I don't know," he says thoughtfully. "I guess I was always taught to as a kid, and I've never really thought about it. But I'd like to believe that there's something or someone out there that's watching over us, at least."

She hums.

"Do you?"

She gives a hollow laugh. "I don't know that it matters. The gods have never cared for people like me."

He looks at her, staring up at him from her spot on the carpet next to a bowl of popcorn and a glass of mulled wine, and something clicks.

"Maybe not," he says softly. "But there are people who do."

Something changes in her expression at his words, and as she holds his gaze a strange feeling starts to form at the bottom of his stomach.

He coughs. "That reminds me – I got you something."

Her brow furrows as he slips a bookmark into his book and disappears into his bedroom. When he emerges, a wrapped box in his hand, she shakes her head.

"I – um, I didn't – "

"I know," he says, smiling slightly. "You don't need to."

"I can't accept that," she protests. "Not if I didn't get you anything."

He rolls his eyes and tosses the box in her direction. "Open it." Then, more gently, "Friendship is not transactional."

A curious expression flits across her face at the word _friendship_, but she takes the gift without further complaint and slips a finger underneath the wrapping paper.

"_Oh,"_ she breathes as the wrapping paper falls away to reveal a small, black pouch. "Steve – "

"It's flameproof, bulletproof, the whole nine yards," he explains as she flips it over to reveal an hourglass, emblazoned in fiery red. "I have one, too. I keep – I keep the things that mean the most to me in it.

He hesitates. "I just figured – we all have something we really treasure, and nothing in our lives is safe. You can tie that to your belt, stick it in a pocket, it's a way to keep something with you, you know?"

"Yeah," she murmurs, tracing the hourglass with a finger. "So, if I put something inside, the only way it gets destroyed is if I die, basically. And maybe not even then."

"Well, I wasn't going to be that morbid about it, but yes."

She studies him for a moment, then grins and sits up. "Thank you. Really."

"Of course."

Her grin fades into a softer smile as she reaches for her wine, beckoning at him to do the same.

"Look at us. Two loners, doing okay on Christmas Eve."

"Doing _more _than okay on Christmas Eve."

"To us," she declares, raising her glass. "For making it through December."

They clink glasses, and as the blend of wine and holiday spices hits his tongue, Steve feels almost festive. 

The stakeout ends almost as quickly as it starts. The mobster shows up on the day after Christmas, they take him down before he even has a chance to draw his gun, and by 4pm on the 27th, the two of them are back at SHIELD headquarters, debriefing complete.

Steve is on his way to the elevator, actually looking forward to returning to his apartment, when he hears someone call his name.

He turns to see Natasha jogging down the hallway toward him, a slip of paper in her hand.

"I have something for you," she announces, coming to a stop in front of him. "Consider it a late Christmas gift."

"I told you, you don't have to – "

"But I did."

"Natasha, really – what you did for me this December is more than anyone could ask for."

The words fall out of his mouth before he really has a chance to think about them, and a blush creeps steadily up the sides of his face as he waits for her to ask what he means.

Instead, her expression softens. "You did it for me, too. Whether you knew it or not."

He barely has time to process her words before she shoves the folded slip of paper into his hands. "Just take it."

Steve unfolds the paper to reveal a sequence of numbers, written in black ink. "What's this?"

"My phone number."

"I have your phone number."

Natasha rolls her eyes. "You have my _work_ phone number. Which I sometimes do not use, depending on my mood, the time of day, and the general urgency of the incoming message. That's my personal phone number."

"I didn't know you had a personal phone number."

She winks. "I don't."

"Right. Okay."

The corner of her mouth quirks up. "If you ever need anything – food, a bowling partner, someone to beat you at _Catan_ – just let me know. Seriously. I know what it's like to be new here – in this world, I mean – and feel like you're completely alone. So use that."

"Yeah," Steve says faintly. "Okay."

"Also, you should ask out your neighbor."

Steve blinks. "What?"

Natasha pats his arm, as if to say, _don't worry, you'll get it someday_, and gives him one last smile before turning and jogging back down the hallway.

Steve turns back toward the elevator, a smile making its way onto his face. He looks down at the slip of paper again, and notices a few words scrawled hastily underneath the phone number.

_Congrats on making it through the worst month! It only gets better from here :)_

Steve steps into the elevator. As the doors start to close, he slips the paper into the small pouch tucked away in his jacket pocket, wondering if she might be right.


End file.
